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Winter School Tales from Danville

Mahikeng Winter School 2017

This year, IkamvaYouth Mahikeng once again hosted a Winter School holiday tutoring program for 60 learners and 18 tutors which was all funded by our partner Coca Cola Beverages South Africa and made successful through the vigorous efforts of a highly motivated group of tutors and the IkamvaYouth learners who earnestly wanted to improve their academics and also enthusiastically engage with their fellow Ikamvanites thorough support programs offered.

The successful Winter School program complimented the core IkamvaYouth programmes that run throughout the year by providing a 2-week opportunity of intensive concentration of academic and non-academic interventions from the 3rd of July to the 14th of July. The highlights of this year’s programme included: focused tutoring sessions in all school subjects for a maximum of 44 hours in the 2 weeks; career guidance and mentoring; life-skills workshops, HIV testing (with the consent of the parents); aerobics (facilitated in house) and the Talent Show to end of the holiday program. The learners are looking forward to attending a CCBSA plant tour and Career Day on the 24th of July 2017 (when the schools re-open).

Tutoring

Every morning before tutoring sessions began; we held an assembly and conducted various energizers and icebreakers. The essential component of IkamvaYouth’s Winter School is the academic component. Tutors offered the learners assistance in their school work, past exam papers and homework to enable the learners to focus on areas and subjects they struggle with. Tutoring sessions also help learners improve their confidence in speaking English while improving their grades. Learners also received an hour of one-on-one tutoring sessions. Each subject had an assigned tutor who was assisting the learners, and the tutor sat with the group for the entire Winter School duration to ensure maximum impact as they get to finish the conversations they started with the same tutor the next day. This does not normally happen at the branch on normal tutoring days, as the learners sit with different tutors on different days for the same subject.

Workshops

A few workshops focused mainly around themes relating to life skills, HIV/Aids awareness and voluntary testing, career guidance, and physical activities were held throughout the two week period. Different stakeholders (such as Lifeline Mafikeng, Families South Africa (FAMSA), (South African National Tuberculosis Association (SANTA) and South African Police Services- Mahikeng (SAPS), came to present to the learners and tutors on various aspects they specialize in.

Lifeline Mahikeng

The Lifeline facilitators came to the branch to discuss the importance of family and how to respect one another. They emphasized that the one cannot live without a family and that the learners should abstain to avoid unwanted pregnancies. The learners enjoyed the session and related to it by speaking about how they see some of their families living in difficult situations and they do not want to put themselves in such a tight corner.

Lifeline Mahikeng (Voluntary HIV Testing and Counseling)

The organisation came in to the branch to conduct voluntary HIV testing. Before the testing began, learners were taken into the hall for encouragement to participate and pre-counseling. They facilitated a highly interactive and engaging session on managing one’s personal health, particularly with regards to HIV/Aids. About 55 of the learners including tutors took the opportunity for voluntary counseling and testing. This was done so that learners and tutors know their HIV status and encouraged to live healthy lives.

iii. SANTA

SANTA explained to the learners how HIV and Aids inter-link with each other. They also highlighted that for one person to get TB, it does not mean that you contract it from a person with it, and mentioned that anyone can get TB from anywhere.

FAMSA

FAMSA brought professional social workers to facilitate a session on the issues of peer-pressure. They explained to the learners that anyone, at any age can feel the pressure.

Talent Show

On the 14th of July, the last day of the Winter School programme learners came to showcase their talents. With the theme being “The future is in your hands” the learners entertained their fellow Ikamvanites and parents/guardians with different performances. What a day! This was a fantastic opportunity for the learners to unwind for a day and enjoy some great performances as well as see another side of the tutors and IY staff who were also participating in the talent show.

The Mahikeng tutor who won “best tutor” of the 2017 Winter School with the most learner votes was Thapelo Mulutsi, a 3rd year Wits student studying Electrical Engineering who is originally from Mafikeng. Thapelo was the guest tutor for Winter School period and has assured the branch staff that he will dedicate more of his time at the Gauteng branches as he is residing there now while at tertiary.

Building a momentum positively impacting perfomance and results

Ikageng set a goal to continually improve our results and maintain positive momentum throughout the year!

Ikamvanites Visiting the CCBSA’s Devland Manufacturing Plant

Throughout the second term of the year, learners have been partaking in our intensive and hand-on tutoring sessions, various recreational activities and excursions. It has already been great to see learners working together in groups – imagine 165 learners, a number of 37 volunteers and 4 IY staff members all working together!

Ikamvanites at the CCBSA plant

CCBSA Experience and Career Day Coca Cola Beverages South Africa hosted our Grade 11 Ikamvanites for a career fair and job shadowing excursion at their Devland Manufacturing Plant site on Monday 29 May 2017. Learners rotated through the various work stations of the manufacturing facilities and saw first-hand how advanced the Coca Cola production process is. CCBSA staff members shared their experiences and showcased how manufacturing today holds opportunities for advancement and success in a variety of careers. The exhibition was not only enjoyed by learners, it extended to our volunteers and staff too.

NWU Open day

On the 6th of May, the Grade 12 Ikageng learners attended the North West University’s Open Day. University staff and students gave talks throughout the day highlighting future career possibilities that await the learners. There was also an opportunity for the learners to find out about other areas of the University including sports, global learning and other student support facilities.

Matric Week activities

The branch ran a Matric Week programme from the 3rd to the 8th April. It’s was full week cycle of comprehensive tutoring and support delivered to a total number of 35 learners from our current matric cohort. We worked with a number of 12 tutor that were elected during the Branch Community to deliver three hours of quality tutoring sessions every day from 9h00am to 1h00pm, followed by a number of various educational workshops every afternoon delivered by various IY stakeholders.

The workshops included the Anti-Drug Campaign, Environmental Education facilitated by North West Parks & Tourism Board; Reading Book Club workshop, a trip to the North West University department of Science for a tour and presentation. On Thursday, the Career Guidance Specialist, Anne-Marie Stanisavljevic, delivered an online career guidance workshop to our learners to help guide their choices and decisions after grade 12. The week ended with the learners online tertiary applications.

The branch is working extremely hard to maintain its history of good matric pass rates.

Our Tutors and Learners Hard at work during our Matric Week

Future Engineers Attending The #GirlEngineering Workshop

Ikamvanites Girls at Sci-Bono premises for the #GirlsEng #AskanEng

On the 22 of April, the WomEng afforded our learners an opportunity attends the #AskanEng workshop hosted in Johannesburg, at SciBono premises in Newtown. A total number of 12 Ikamvanites girls attended the session, we selected three learners from each grade (Grade 9, 10,11 and 12) according to their academic excellence and their expressed interest in Mathematics and Science. This workshop introduced the exciting world of engineering as a career option for girls and discussions on the importance of maths and science at an early age.

We received positive feedback from girls that attended; most of learners say, “I Never Knew That Engineering Had So Many Opportunities” and “I Never Knew This Was a Career Option For Me”.

Computer Literacy Programme

On the 12th of April, the staff members and two volunteers (Molebogeng and Shawn) received Computer4Kids, enabling us to efficiently deliver the computer literacy for our learners across all grades.

The objective is to have all the Ikageng registered learners to be gain crucial computer literacy skills and enable them to have better access to information.

The lessons ran smoothly and well received by our learners.

My Future My Career

My Future My Career is an amazing imitative that is driven by Primestars Marketing and Shine Solutions, the objective of this initiative is to expose learners to career opportunities in a fun way (movie screening). Our learners were granted the most amazing opportunity of being part of “My Future My Career”, they learnt so much and had fun.

Mentor/Mentee day

Our mentors have shown interest and are very enthusiastic about the programme. They have been very supportive in that they planned a Mentor day with our Grade 12 learners and helped them with Tertiary applications.

Printer Donation and parents meeting